A day in the life of the president

[Cees Binkhorst]

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WASHINGTON — Each morning when he arrives at the Oval Office, President
Barack Obama asks his staff to deliver him a package containing 10
letters. It is a mere sampling of the 40,000 or so that Americans send to
the White House every day — a barrage of advice from students and
teachers, small-business owners and the unemployed.

In between his daily meetings , Obama has made a habit of sitting alone
behind his desk and reading one letter at a time, friends and advisers
said. The exercise is intended to help keep him grounded, but it also
provides Obama with a glimpse beyond the White House walls and the Secret
Service perimeter into what the president sometimes refers to as “the real
world.”

Obama has learned during his first 40 days in the White House that he must
fight to preserve such direct connections to the citizens he leads.

His life as president is outsourced to about 25 assistants, 25 deputy
assistants and 50 special assistants who act as a massive siphon to
control the information that reaches his desk and schedule the meetings
that shape his days. Staff sorts through his mail and selects the 10
letters that he reads. Two “body men” follow him in lockstep to carry his
jacket, supply his ChapStick and place his calls.
Many gatekeepers

The same culture of delegation has governed life in the White House for
decades, but Obama’s popularity has heightened the need for so many
gatekeepers. As the country’s first black president, he receives an
unprecedented number of requests for autographs and interviews, aides
said, and less than one request in every thousand merits his attention.

Friends and advisers said Obama has chafed at some aspects of his
presidential existence. He has asked his advisers to schedule at least one
campaign-style trip out of Washington each week, and he has fled the White
House to eat meals out, visit Camp David in Maryland and spend a weekend
in Chicago.

“People don’t understand what it’s like to be trapped within four walls
that happen to be called the White House,” said Delegate Eleanor Holmes
Norton, D-D.C., who has spoken with Obama about his new life. “Barack is
determined not to be engulfed in the bubble, because part of his own
analysis is that’s what happened to his predecessor. He knows it’s easy to
become a prisoner of these things and become totally cut off.”

It is one of the great ironies of the presidency: The man who controls so
much also cedes so much control. Long before Obama arrives in the West
Wing after 8 each morning, every part of his day has been debated and
partitioned by a circle of senior advisers. They help determine what he
reads, who he calls and which meetings he attends.

His time is the most valuable commodity in the White House, and it’s
guarded like a precious jewel. The White House scheduling department logs
all requests for Obama’s time, compiles a spreadsheet of options and asks
a cadre of senior advisers for input.

“The way I would frame the job is that I want to maximize his time,” said
Staff Secretary Lisa Brown, an assistant to the president . “So it’s
making sure that, when we send him something, it is what he wants to see,
when he wants to see it, and we are helping him be as efficient as he
could be.”

In the name of efficiency, Obama’s senior staff arrives at the White House
before 7 a.m. to begin planning his day. A small group of close advisers —
Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, scheduler Alyssa Mastromonaco, campaign
architects David Axelrod and Pete Rouse — meets at 7:30 a.m. Less than an
hour later, about 30 heads of White House departments gather in the
Roosevelt Room for a 20-minute roundtable. Each delivers a brief update on
his department’s activities, staff members said, and then Emanuel
instructs them on the message of the day. Senior staff members in charge
of such matters as trip planning and constituent outreach deal almost
exclusively with Emanuel; some department heads said they have seen Obama
only once or twice since he was sworn in.

Obama eats breakfast with his daughters and exercises in the third-floor
gym before making his way to the Oval Office for morning meetings. A
national security briefing, a daily economics briefing, a review of
upcoming remarks with his speechwriters — all are set pieces on his
morning schedule that last between 15 and 45 minutes apiece. At 10 a.m.,
Obama meets with senior advisers, some of whom bring index cards inscribed
with reminders . If they forget to mention something to Obama, their next
chance probably won’t come until the following day.

On days when he’s in Washington, Obama usually holds a public event about
11 a.m. and then eats lunch in the Oval Office with a senior official . He
prefers to move around in the afternoons; he has left the White House to
see Cabinet members and visit the Treasury and Energy departments. He is,
spokesman Robert Gibbs said, “a restless soul.”

“Since we’ve gotten to the White House, the president has told us that
there’s too much padding and things can be back to back because he needs
to fit a lot into the day,” Mastromonaco said. “I still err with caution,
because you don’t want someone like Secretary Clinton or a foreign leader
waiting for 40 minutes. But he feels like ‘I’m here.’ And he wants to get
things done.”

After a busy 11-hour day in the Oval Office, Obama usually leaves to meet
his family for dinner, with more work still to do.
Dinner time

Obama craves some casual interaction to cushion the formality of life in
the White House, friends said. Younger staff members said he likes to be
kept up on gossip about weekend and new girlfriends and feels left out
anytime he’s the last to know what’s going on in their lives. On Super
Bowl Sunday, he invited a few dozen people to the White House for a party
with two rules: no talking about politics and no posed pictures.

As a senator, Obama complained Washington felt “status-conscious” and
“artificial.” He promised during the presidential campaign that he would
travel outside the capital for a regular dose of perspective. As Obama
tried to sell his economic recovery package, he made more trips outside
Washington in his first month than any of the past five presidents.

Advisers said Obama will continue to board Air Force One every week, for
reasons both political and psychological. His only caveat is that an
effort be made to get him home in time for dinner. That time at the table
with his daughters is what Obama looks forward to all day, staffers said.
But his escape never lasts long. While Obama eats, a team of staff members
compiles his nightly briefing book. Around the time Obama finishes his
dinner, a staffer delivers the weighty briefing book, which he reads late
into the night.
By ELI SASLOW
WASHINGTON POST
March 1, 2009, 10:15PM

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